issuing a "red alert" HELPS the terrorists

[arcane1]

if they had something planned, they now know that security is increased and they'd be more likely to be caught

when the alert level drops back down to yello, they know they can now go forward with their plans

*announcing an alert status is BENEFICIAL to them* It's a heck of a lot more beneficial to them than announcing that we're tracking their money


(this is, of course, assuming it's not all bullshit in the first place. I'm just trying to add some logic to the "official" story)

[skiddlybop]

1. This from Juan Cole today...

(snip)

British authorities say that they have been investigating the group behind the airplane bombing plot for "about a year." The Scotsman says that the investigation began in 2005.

US authorities were only told about some details two weeks ago, apparently. It may be that the British counter-terrorism community learned its lesson from the loose lips of the Bushies in summer of 2004. I argued then that from what we could tell from open sources, it seemed likely that the Bush administration played politics with information about a double agent in Pakistan who was helping monitor a London al-Qaeda cell. It seems likely that the election-year leak allowed budding terrorists like Mohammad Sadique Khan to escape closer scrutiny, and so permitted the 7/7/05 London subway bombings to go forward.

This time, the MI5 and MI6 and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may not have told Washington everything.

(snip)